From this Sunday's Travel section of the NYT:
For nine years, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation has been working to make Philadelphia's Liberty Bell/Benjamin Franklin image appeal more specifically to African Americans, students, seniors, families and, most recently, gays and lesbians. Now Philadelphia is figuring out how best to say bienvenidos to Hispanics.
"Our goal is to raise Philadelphia's visibility as a new destination to one of the fastest-growing populations in America," Meryl Levitz, president of the tourism organization, said in an e-mail.
At stake for cheese-steak central and its five-county region is a larger piece of the $37.2 billion that Hispanics spend on domestic travel, according to numbers determined in 2003 by the Travel Industry Association of America.
Philadelphia's tourism corporation expects to spend some $900,000 in the next three years to attract Hispanics, according to Ms. Levitz. Already there is a twice-yearly tour, called "Latin Flavor, Latin Soul," of the neighborhood of El Centro de Oro (the next tour is Sept. 10). By August, the corporation's Web site, www.gophila.com, will have an area addressing Hispanic travelers.
In the meantime there are three 15-second commercials on Telemundo in Philadelphia (part of local sponsorship of the Latin Music Awards ) and print ads in both national and New York City Spanish-language publications like Hispanic Magazine and El Diario/La Prensa, among other efforts like research at local conventions of Hispanic organizations.
Philadelphia is not alone. Tourism initiatives
have been developed nationwide in other cities and states, like
Illinois and Louisiana. Even the Royal Caribbean cruise line started a
Spanish-language Web site in 2004.
PAMELA NOEL
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